Totally Random

This is the story of how one of the most annoying hours I spent this year turned into a totally awesome random act of kindness in a college town I don't even know.

Mom wanted to send a floral "little Christmas, right this very minute" to her children and grandchildren and family members. Eight minutes of Christmas. I was to help her with this chore.

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Oh! Whoops! Did I say chore? Surely, you know I meant cheer.

I try to do this online. No go. I try to do this on the phone. Mom gets too tired to listen to me explaining same arrangement, eight different addresses, and asked that I do it from home.

OK. I try to do this from home. I get disconnected. I try again. By this time I am crying and telling the poor girl who answered that my mother was in hospice, that this may very well be her last Christmas and she wanted to send eight minutes of it RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE !!

It takes over an hour to do this. Each order had to be done separately, each inquiry whether I wanted to add a teddy bear or candy asked each time. I apologized to the order-taker for my Grinchy ways and she told me eight times, "I understand, Mizzzzzzzzzzzz Fulford."

So, turns out, Mizzzzzzzzz Fulford made a few mistakes, herself. Turns out she had a few incorrect addresses for some of her kin. Each time, though, while I was ordering, I was asked for the recipient's phone number. Each time, I gave my own.

Good call by me.

A woman calls me from the address I thought was my college-aged niece's. This woman told me she had no record of anyone by that name living there. She said the college was pretty deserted; most everyone had left for Winter Break. I reached my brother and called this woman back. My niece was already on her way home.

Enjoy the flowers, I said.

But then we started brainstorming.

Any hospitals near by? Any hospice facilities?

She remembered a retirement community she passed on her way home. She would take Mom's Christmas minute there.

Totally random. Totally awesome. Totally best Christmas minute ever. Seven of Mom's Christmas minutes got where they were going, and one, little lost minute was shared.

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